The Alpha's Unclaimed Mate (Jason and Laila) by Caroline Above Story novel Chapter 17

Jason's POV

I stumbled back into my room at the pack house like I'd just gone ten rounds with a freight train.

This night was supposed to be simple. Business dinner. Shake hands. Trade empty promises with other Alphas. Maybe finally corner Vanessa Harper—the woman who'd been dodging me like I carried a disease—and pin her down for answers.

Instead, I got… this.

The woman who refused every offer I made? The one who reminds me so much of Laila. The one who poured coffee on Brittany and ordered us to be banned from her building. The one who bolted from that ballroom like death was on her heels after a call about her daughter.

This woman was Vanessa Harper?

There were too many coincidences. Too many threads pulling me in directions I didn't want to go.

I ripped off my tie and went straight for the whiskey. The expensive stuff. The bottle I usually saved for when politics got so dirty I can't scrub the stink off. Tonight? I thought about the confusion and the ache that had taken up residence inside my chest ever since I first saw that woman. Vanessa.

Yeah, tonight was a night worthy of whiskey.

I didn't even get the glass to my lips before the door opened without so much as a knock.

Brittany.

Silk negligee, blonde hair perfect, makeup untouched by the late hour. She looked like she'd stepped out of a magazine ad for the perfect Luna. Every Alpha's dream.

Except when I looked at her, I felt… nothing.

"There you are," she purred, sliding onto my bed like she owned it. "I've been waiting."

"Get out, Brittany."

Her brows shot up, insult painted across her perfect face. "Excuse me?"

"You heard me. Out. I'm not in the mood."

"You're never in the mood!" Her voice pitched higher, petulant, like a spoiled kid denied candy. "We're fated, Jason. The goddess chose us to be together. And after all this time, you still won't mark me, or hell, even have sex with me, let alone make us official."

She wasn't wrong. Six years. Six years of excuses, delays, every tactic in the book to avoid binding myself to her forever.

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